A Trail of Ink

by Mel Starr

  “Your logic, Master John, is impeccable, as always. But it must be flawed. Even though all of your scholars, secular and monks, were at table, it seems sure that one of them, at least, gave guidance in this matter.”

  “To whom?”

  “Ah, you have me there. This is what I must search out. The porter says none were about, but as all the residents of the Hall were at their meal, there was surely one, or more, to do the theft.”

  Master John went to scratching the back of his head again. “Aye, it must be as you say. But why, if the thief was a stranger to the Hall, must it be a scholar gave direction?”

  “How would an alien know which chamber was yours, or know the value of your books… or know that you kept them in your chamber rather than in the library?”

  “An’ ’twould take more’n one, I’m thinkin’,” Arthur commented. “I seen scholars carryin’ books on the street. One thief didn’t get many books away by hisself. How many was took?”

  “Twenty-two,” I replied.

  “One thief didn’t get twenty-two books over the wall,” Arthur declared.

  Over the wall! A man wearing a scholar’s black gown could go over the wall near where Master John’s chamber butted against it. Such a man might pass about the yard in little danger of being seen. The porter would be looking out from the gatehouse toward St John’s Street. The scholars would be at their meal.

  “Come,” I urged, and led the way from Master John’s chamber into the yard. The scholar and Arthur followed obediently into the morning sunlight, questioning expressions upon their faces.

  There were but three short lengths of the Canterbury Hall wall which were exposed to the yard. Most of the wall formed the exterior of the hall, the kitchen, the scholars’ cells, and the chapel. But on either side of the entrance gate the interior of the wall was exposed, and on the south extension there was a short length of open wall, between Master Wyclif’s chamber and the hall. I turned my steps in that direction.

  The cobbled yard extended here to the wall. I studied the cobbles, and looked to the top of the wall. The stones were silent.

  The wall about Canterbury Hall is not imposing. I stood on my toes, reached as high as I could, and came within a hand’s breadth of the top of the enclosure. A man would need but a short ladder to climb over the wall, but the cobbles at my feet would leave no mark if a ladder had once rested there. Outside the wall, however, might be another matter.

  Master John and Arthur studied me while I studied the wall and the cobbles at its base. While I examined the wall a bell rang from the nearby priory Church of St Frideswide. I recognized the bells. I had heard them ring out to summon students to battle during the St Scholastica Day riots, when I was new to Oxford as a student at Balliol College.

  “Time for mass,” Wyclif explained. Arthur and I followed him to the chapel as scholars left their cells and moved silently across the yard to join our small procession.

  I could not keep my thoughts on worship. My mind reviewed what I had learned of Canterbury Hall, which was little enough. I pondered monks and antagonistic secular scholars, the weight of twenty-two books, and ladders.

  My brooding mist dissolved when Master John concluded his sermon, performed the kiss of peace, and then passed the gospel to the scholars who, each in turn, also kissed God’s word. I watched intently to see did any shy from this duty. For a man to kiss the gospel while he hid evil in his heart would be a grave sin, as all present in the chapel, even Arthur, knew. My hope for easy resolution of theft was frustrated. All kissed the holy book with fervor. Either all were innocent of complicity in larceny, or one, at least, had no fear for his soul.

  It was time for dinner when mass was done. I began to recognize the diet of Canterbury Hall. The meal was another pease pottage with a maslin loaf, cheese, and ale. The pottage was flavored again with bacon, and the ale was fresh. The meal was hot, tasty, and filling. But a man could soon become weary of the fare. Perhaps this was one reason the scholars of Canterbury Hall were so contentious.

  It was the work of the fellows to take down the tables after the meal. During the week the benches would then be arranged for disputation, and the tables set up again for supper. There would be no debates this day; it was Sunday. But the tables were stacked against the wall regardless of the day.

  The work was none of Master John’s, so he left the hall immediately after his dinner was finished. I followed, and Arthur trudged behind. The tedium of the diet at Canterbury Hall seemed not to affect Arthur’s appetite. I believe he would have preferred to stay for another bowl of pottage.

  Master Wyclif turned and spoke when we were well away from the hall and any listening ear. “You spoke of ladders,” he reminded me.

  “Indeed. But if a ladder was propped against the inner side of the wall, it would leave no mark against the cobbles. We must go out and inspect the outer side of the wall.”

  We did. But before we passed through the gate I stepped off the distance from the end of Master John’s chamber to the front wall, on Schidyard Street; seventeen paces. Outside the wall, at the corner where south and east walls meet, I began to step off the distance, and stopped when I completed seventeen paces.

  This experiment was also a disappointment. There were no cobbles here, outside the wall, but if a ladder was recently placed here the mark was lost in the foliage which found the warmth of a sun-warmed south wall agreeable.

  I was unwilling to give up the search so easily. A closer inspection was needed. I knelt and on hands and knees inspected the ground about the base of the wall. I assumed a ladder tall enough to top the wall would have its base one pace or a little more from the foot of the wall. So it was along such a line I searched. Arthur grasped my intent and wordlessly joined me in examining the sod. This was a fruitless enterprise. We gained only soiled hands and stained chauces at the knees.

  Arthur’s remark that a thief or two had come over the wall had seemed to me so likely that I was reluctant to give up the theory, although I had found no evidence that it was so.

  “Nothing, eh?” Wyclif observed.

  I shook my head, brushed mould from hands and knees, and turned my gaze to the nearby structures which lay close to the south wall of Canterbury Hall. Of these there were few. Three houses stood between Canterbury Hall and the town wall, where the wall abutted St Frideswide’s Priory. These housed, I assumed, three families and their businesses.

  The buildings were much alike; two stories, with shops and workrooms below, the family living quarters above. They were of timber, wattle and daub. Two had recently thatched roofs; one roof, however, was old and decayed and whoever slept beneath it was going to awaken often in a damp bed. Whatever business occupied these homes, it was seemingly enough to keep them, but not enough to bring prosperity. In difficult times like this, perhaps that is all a man can ask of his craft.

  A muddy lane led from Schidyard Street and gave access to these structures. As the homes faced this lane, it was the tofts at the rear of the houses which abutted the south wall of Canterbury Hall.

  The tofts were not large, nor were they walled. They appeared to be cultivated. Indeed, the last of the season’s cabbages and turnips were yet unharvested from the toft nearest Schidyard Street.

  No sound of labor or commerce came from the houses. This was the Lord’s Day. The inhabitants were enjoying their day of rest.

  I turned to Master John, ready to acknowledge defeat, when my eye scanned the side of the middle house. A ladder lay on the turf close by the west wall of the structure. It was in shadow, nearly invisible as it lay, one side on the earth, the other propped low against the side of the house.

  I pointed to the ladder: “Look there.” Arthur and Master John followed my arm, then turned to me. A look of triumph flickered across the scholar’s face.

  “Whose houses are these?” I asked.

  “A cobbler and two who deal in wool… yarn spinners.”

  “The middle house?”

  “A yarn-mak
er, I think. The fellow’s wife and daughters card and comb and work the distaff. The husband busies himself with buying and selling.”

  The middle house featured the decaying roof. “I think wool may not provide much custom,” Master John observed.

  “Nay,” Arthur agreed. “Not since the great dyin’. Them as is dead have no need o’ new garments, an’ them as live can wear what the dead need no more.”

  I walked across the muddy toft to the rear of the yarn-spinner’s house and rapped upon the door. I heard a bench scrape across a flagged floor – perhaps there had once been more prosperity in this house than at present – and the door cracked open. The man who stood in the opening was clearly puzzled to have callers in his toft. He peered from me to Arthur to Master John. I thought a flash of recognition crossed his features when he saw Master Wyclif.

  “The ladder which lays aside your house, for what is it used?”

  The fellow was puzzled by my question. Why should three men, one in the black gown of a scholar, approach his home through the toft on a quiet Sunday afternoon and enquire about a ladder?

  “’Tis the thatcher’s,” he answered. “Me roof is bad. Needs redone afore winter.”

  The questioning look never left the man’s face while he provided this simple answer. He surely sought some reason why three strange men should enquire about a ladder.

  “You need to borrow a ladder?” he finally asked. “Thatcher won’t mind, I’m thinkin’, so long as it’s back ’ere when he begins work.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Soon, I ’ope. Thought he was to begin last week.”

  “How long has the ladder been here?”

  “Dropped it off with a cart-load of reeds near a fortnight past. Reeds is out front. ’Ope ’e gets round to me roof soon, ’fore November rains set in.”

  “Does the ladder lay now just as it did when the thatcher left it?”

  “Dunno… paid no heed.”

  “Would you come and have a look?”

  “Aye. What’s all this about?” The yarn-spinner peered at Master John. “You be of Canterbury Hall?”

  “I am,” Wyclif replied.

  “Thought I seen you there. Does the Hall need a ladder, the thatcher won’t mind yer usin’ ’is… won’t know of it anyway, so long as you bring it back.”

  The four of us passed the corner of the house and gazed upon the ladder. “Is it as it was when the thatcher left it?” I asked.

  “Can’t say. Paid no mind.” The puzzled expression returned to the fellow’s face as he realized we intended to borrow no ladder. An explanation was in order.

  “Property has gone missing from Canterbury Hall. ’Tis possible some felon used a ladder to get over the wall, just there.” I pointed to the wall, some twenty paces away.

  Understanding, then apprehension washed across the yarn-spinner’s countenance.

  “I’m an honest man, an’ no thief,” he protested.

  “We do not accuse you,” I assured him, “but it’s possible the stolen goods were taken by one who gained entrance to the Hall over the wall.”

  “An’ so you want to know has the ladder been moved?” The yarn-spinner grasped my intent. “I been busy with work. Gave no thought to the thatcher’s business… ’E hasn’t begun yet, so…”

  The man’s voice trailed off with his thoughts.

  “Have you seen, in the past fortnight, any man walking along the wall?”

  “Nay. None pass there. Where would a man go did ’e walk behind me toft along that wall? His journey would lead ’im no place.”

  “No place an honest man need go,” Arthur added.

  We stood between the yarn-spinner’s house and that of the cobbler as we discussed ladders and walls. While we spoke my gaze drifted over the town wall to the water meadow to the south and the willows lining the banks of the Cherwell. Two figures walked there; a woman dressed in a long cotehardie of blue, and a man wearing parti-colored chauces, a red cotehardie, and a cap ending in a long yellow liripipe. The couple were two hundred paces from me, and walking away, so I could not see their faces. I did not need to.

  The sight of Kate and Sir Simon caused me to lose the thread of our conversation. The others noted this and followed my eyes to the south. We four stared at the strolling pair, and Arthur began to sing in a cracked voice, “It was a lover an’ his lass, with a hey, with a ho, with a hey nonnny, nonny, no.”

  The yarn-spinner and Master John chuckled at this wit. Then Wyclif noticed my face and fell silent.

  I turned my face from Kate Caxton to the riddle before me: Master John’s missing books. Any man who had seen Mistress Kate might wonder that I was able to do so. Truth is, the resolve did not last long.

  I have found it helpful when faced with a puzzle to write of events and possible solutions, placing my thoughts on parchment. Doing so keeps my mind ordered, and some minor incident, when inked on parchment, can take on new significance.

  So as Master Wyclif, Arthur, and I trudged along the wall and back to the porter and the gatehouse, I asked Master John for parchment, quill, and ink. Also for a table and bench. These were brought to the guest chamber. I set Arthur free for the afternoon, told Master John of my intent, and until the tenth hour sat scratching my thoughts on parchment. I wondered if I was wasting parchment. And yes, more than once my thoughts strayed to Kate Caxton.

  Master John’s books were gone, likely taken by more than one man. The porter, did he speak truthfully, saw no one enter the hall. The scholars, both monks and seculars, were at supper when the thieves struck. But these felons knew where to go, so some knowledge of the Hall might have been passed to them. Or perhaps the thieves were formerly attached to Canterbury Hall. Or perhaps they were simply in luck when they entered Master John’s chamber.

  Arthur’s guess that a ladder was used to gain entrance had seemed worth pursuing, but when the wall and grounds about it were examined no sign of a ladder’s use was found. Nevertheless, a ladder was readily available. But would a thief, intent on stealing Master John’s books – a thing which must have been contemplated for many days – know that the thatcher’s ladder would be conveniently propped against the yarn-spinner’s house? Perhaps, if a ladder was used, the thieves brought their own, and the presence of the thatcher’s ladder was but coincidence.

  To what man would the books be most valuable? A scholar, surely. Or who would most like to see Master John bereft of his volumes? Oxford is a den of scholarly vipers, each seeking eminence above others. Did some master take this way to avenge himself against a slight from Wyclif?

  “Too many folk here in a hurry,” Arthur announced, breaking upon my thoughts as he entered the guest chamber. “Even on the Lord’s Day, scurryin’ ’ere an’ there. Bampton be more to my likin’.”

  His remarks concluded, Arthur sat heavily upon the other bench and stared at me, then at the parchment before me. What I had written there was meaningless to him, but he peered at the writing with a confident expression, as if the mystery of stolen books could be explained through the mystery of writing.

  I laid the quill aside, picked up the parchment, and told Arthur, “Here are no answers, only questions.”

  “An’ when you find answers to the questions, you find books, eh?”

  “Aye. And not all of the questions need answers. Only the proper questions must be explained.”

  “Trouble is,” Arthur observed, “you don’t know yet of the questions you writ which ones ’tis need answers. That right?”

  “Aye. I must choose what I will search for first – books, or the thief who plundered them. If I find the thief, I will then find the books. But the act of thievery is past, so how I am to trace the felon I do not know. If I find the books, I might then learn who it was who took them, and how, for the books are surely not destroyed, and are searchable.”

  “Seems to me,” Arthur replied, “what Master Wyclif wants most is his books. Did he never know the thief he’ll be satisfied, long as ’e has ’
is books. T’other hand, ’e’d not be pleased to know who ’twas took ’em did ’e never see ’em again.”

  Arthur made sense. Find the books. See justice for the thief after. If the books were ever offered for sale, my work would be easier. If they had become part of some scholar’s library, I must fail. How could I inspect every library in every house and hall and college in Oxford?

  The first thing to do was to visit the stationers of Oxford and leave with each a list of the stolen volumes. I sought Master John and procured another sheet of parchment upon which I made seven lists of the stolen works. This business I did not conclude until the sun was below Oxford’s rooftops and the bell rang for supper. I include the list:

  Rhetoric: Aristotle

  Perspective: Witelo

  Institutes: Priscian

  Categories: Aristotle

  Ethics: Aristotle

  Metaphysics: Aristotle

  Sentences: Lombard

  Topics, Books 1, 2, and 3: Boethius

  Topics, Book 4: Boethius

  Elements: Euclid

  Almagest: Ptolemy

  Historia Scholastica: Comestar

  Commentary on Aristotle’s “Physics”: Grosseteste

  Commentary on Posterior Analytics: Grosseteste

  De causa dei: Bradwardine

  Holy Bible

  De Actibus Animae: Wyclif

  De Logica, three volumes: Wyclif

  Borrowed:

  Moralia on Job: Gregory the Great

  Historia Ecclesiastica: Bede

  Arthur and I set off Monday morning to visit the stationers and booksellers of Oxford. Of such establishments there had been six when I was a lad at Balliol College. I assumed Caxton’s shop would make seven. I was wrong.

  I determined to visit the other stationers first, as I hoped there might be other business to detain me at Caxton’s. I left the sixth list at a shop on the Northgate Street, and passed two other stationers new to me before Arthur and I arrived at Holywell Street before Caxton’s open shutters. I must copy two more lists.